Currently used and known concepts for providing high lift devices on a wing of an aircraft are usually based on movable aerodynamically shaped profiles. These profiles may be realized as reinforced panels or other wing sections, which are selectively moved to different positions through the use of a drive system. A drive system usually includes actuators and kinematic elements, like rods, linkages and tracks with rails and carriages. High lift systems often include movable elements at a leading edge as well as at a trailing edge. Throughout many decades, several different concepts have evolved, which utilize different flaps and leading edge slats. Through moving the respective high lift devices, a resulting surface area, a resulting camber as well as the existence and size of gaps is adjustable, thereby influencing the lift coefficient of the wing.
For improving the overall aerodynamic characteristics of the wing, high lift components are usually designed to have a certain shape that allows to influence the air flow as harmonic as possible. Additional installations are sometimes used to provide a further improvement of the aerodynamic characteristics regarding drag and noise. However, these aerodynamic devices require a certain installation space and a related manufacturing effort.
For example, U.S. Patent Publication 2007/0241236 shows an aircraft having a wing defining an aerofoil surface, the wing comprising a drooped leading edge flap being moveable between a stowed position and a deployed position, wherein the wing is so arranged that during flight when the high-lift device is in the deployed position, air may flow through an opening in the wing and over the aerofoil surface. During flight, air preferably flows into the boundary layer on the upper surface of the wing. This energizes the boundary layer, aft of the trailing edge of the drooped leading edge flap increasing its stability allowing the maximum achievable lift coefficient to be increased and hence reducing aircraft take-off and approach speeds.
Still further, U.S. Pat. No. 6,789,769 shows a slat selectively extendable from a main wing body, with a concave rear surface of the slat facing a convex forward nose surface of the wing body, with a slat gap therebetween. Flexible bristles are movably arranged relative to the lower rear edge of the slat, to flexibly protrude up into the slat air gap, which bristles are flexibly self-positioning and self-contouring due to the aerodynamic forces acting thereon, to improve the air flow conditions through the slat gap, separate the slat gap airflow from an entrapped eddy vortex on the concave rear surface of the slat, and thereby reduce the aerodynamic noise generated along the slat gap.